Current Projects

Local Engagement, Action and Dialogue (LEAD) - Through research, interviews, workshops and drafting, Just Ground is supporting EarthRights International in documenting and providing training on the strategies and participatory research tools it uses to support community-led responses to corporate abuses in the Mekong region.

Pooled Funding for Community Legal and Technical Support - Just Ground is collaborating with Rights CoLab and Namati on the creation of a pooled funding facility for legal and technical support for communities affected by land-based investment projects. The project includes desk research and engagement within a series of iterative multi-stakeholder conversations to develop a brief, core principles and design elements for the funding facility.

Worker-driven Social Responsibility (WSR) Toolkit - Worker-driven Social Responsibility (WSR) recognizes that workers have the knowledge and expertise to develop their own solutions to systematically eradicate exploitation on the job. Just Ground and the WSR Network are collaborating on a creating a WSR Toolkit based on the experiences and expertise of the worker organizations and their allies who have implemented (or are working to implement) WSR in their industries.

Community-Driven Operation-level Grievance Mechanism (CD-OGM) - Just Ground and EarthRights International are working to advance a rights holder-centered approach to operational grievance mechanisms in the context of land-based projects in the Mekong region, as critical for confronting the shortcomings of top-down, company-created complaints processes.

Past Projects

Global Advocacy Team Report - International Accountability Project’s Global Advocacy Team (GAT) initiative brings together community organizers to conduct community-led research and design their own community-led development plans. Just Ground is supported the initiative by reviewing and editing the Team’s collective report and facilitating a workshop on collaborative data analysis. 

Milk With Dignity - Designed and lead a program evaluation on behalf of the Fair Food Standards Council, employing the Collaborative Outcomes Reporting framework and quantitative and qualitative methods.

Presentations

The Practice of International Lawyering with a Rights-based Perspective: Illuminating the Roles of Human Rights Defenders and Rights-Holders, Celebration of the 75th Anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), ABA International Law Section and the Paris Bar, December 6-8, 2023.

The Human Rights Due Diligence Process - Practical Guidance for Lawyers, Business and Human Rights Forum for Legal Practitioners – 3rd Edition, International Association of Lawyers, July 10-12, 2023

Stakeholder Engagement in Human Rights Due Diligence, The European Turn to Sustainability Due Diligence: From Concept to Obligation, Asser Institute Spring Academy, April 3-5, 2023

Publications

• Just Ground & EarthRights International, Contribution to the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Independence of Judges and Lawyers consultation on its 2023 thematic report on Legal Empowerment, May 5, 2023.

• Just Ground & EarthRights International, Contribution to the UN Working Group on Business and Human Rights consultation on its report Development Finance Institutions (DFIs) and Human Rights, March 3, 2023.

• Shauna Curphey, Business and Human Rights Developments: The U.N. Accountability and Remedy Project Update, Vol. 57 ABA International Law Section Year in Review, 406-409 (2023).

• Antonella Angelini & Shauna Curphey, Centering Worker Rights: Insights from the Fair Food Program, Business and Human Rights Resource Center, November 29, 2022.

• Antonella Angelini & Shauna Curphey, The Overlooked Advantages of the Independent Monitoring and Complaint Investigation System in the Worker-driven Social Responsibility Model in US Agriculture, Business and Human Rights Journal First View, October 2022.

• Shauna Curphey, Exploring Challenges to Company Adoption of Community-Designed Grievance Mechanisms, ABA Center for Human Rights, May 2022.

• Katherine McDonnell & Shauna Curphey, Contribution to the UN Working Group on Business and Human Rights consultation its report on Corporate Influence in the Political and Regulatory Sphere, May 29, 2022.

• Shauna Curphey & Jared Cole, Stakeholder Engagement in Human Rights Due Diligence, January 2022 (advance copy of chapter in A Guide to Human Rights Due Diligence for Lawyers, American Bar Association Publishing.

• Katherine McDonnell, Morvarid Bagheri & Shauna Curphey, Addressing Corporate Activity That Negatively Impacts Natural Resources: Community-Led Engagement as a Path to Rights-Compatible Remedies, ABA International Law News, Fall 2021.

• Institute for Multi-Stakeholder Initiative Integrity (MSI Integrity), Not Fit for Purpose: The Grand Experiment of Multi-Stakeholder Initiatives in Corporate Accountability, Human Rights, and Global Governance, July 2020 (Shauna Curphey, contributing researcher).

• EarthRights International, The Burma-China Pipelines: Human Rights Violations, Applicable Law, and Revenue Secrecy, March 2011 (Shauna Curphey, co-authored with EarthRights staff).

• EarthRights International, Broken Ethics: The Norwegian Government’s Investments in Oil and Gas Companies Operating in Burma (Myanmar), December 2010 (Shauna Curphey, co-authored with EarthRights staff).

• International Women’s Initiative, Contribution to the UN Working Group on Business and Human Rights report on Applying a Gender Lens to the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, October 2018 (Shauna Curphey, co-authored with IWI staff).